Tall Girl

Lack of story direction = Disappointing

Let me start this off by saying I really did want to like it and was really looking forward to this. My critique is harsh but I ultimately did enjoy it for what it was/could've been.

TL;DR: Aimless, over-ambitious, and over-inflated plot that commits to nothing and does not feel rewarding. Would've worked better as a drama. Cute role reversal, though.

A movie that wanted to do and be a lot, so it ended up just being aimless. Maybe this is because it's based on a manhua that likely goes on forever and they wanted to include as much of it as possible, but the story (in movie format) feels extremely rushed and at the same time boring as hell. The important scenes aren't actually made important and so much is going on of little consequence that you don't really care about anything. There's no time to actually sit with the characters before you're yanked onto the next scene. It goes from one beat to the next in the snap of a finger, and important moments are sped through or shown in montages, depriving the audience of any anchor to connect with the story or characters.

To me, it felt like I watched the combination of the first and last episode of a drama with some scenes sprinkled here and there for connection. It felt like one of those YouTube recaps more than an actual movie.

But a bad plot for me can ultimately be passable if the characters are good, but that too was lacking because everything was so rushed. I think the characters are what actually suffered the most. The moments where the two leads can actually have a moment of quiet and interact with each other for longer than 30 seconds at a time were the absolute highlight for me. Unfortunately, those can be counted on one hand, because the romance is mostly in the background. Had they committed more to the rom part of the romcom, I think this would've been a far more enjoyable experience... But alas, they did not.

So, what's the main point of the movie if not the romance in a romcom? I honestly have no clue. I don't think even the creators know. Like I said at the beginning, it wants to do and be so much. They wanted the sports arc, the fashion arc, the romantic arc, the love-triangle arc, the secondary couple arc, and the acceptance arc... So they did all of them very, very sloppily. In order for so much to work in 1½ hours, the story needs to be tighter, but in my opinion, it should've been a drama. That way, everything could've unfolded better and actually told a meaningful story, allowing the characters to lead us through their lives and hardships rather than this speedrun of the manhua (which is what I'm guessing happened).

Pivotal moments between the leads that develop the romance were completely missing, all for the sake of all this other inflating filler that ultimately added nothing and went nowhere, because that, too, was glossed over and rushed. Things are set up at the beginning, and then at one point, we get a 180 turn and they're resolved. No buildup, no resolution. Just a brief conversation/line if you're lucky, and voila.

As for the rest... Nothing stood out. The production quality is mid to low-tier, so don't expect good camera-work, locations, sound quality, or music but it's watchable. As for the acting, it was alright. ML and FL were good enough; everyone else was honestly pretty lacking. The comedy was 95% a miss for me. It relies a lot on obnoxious humour. The funniest moments where the unintentional ones, I do think.

It has some entertainment value if you're here for the atypical role reversal dynamic between the lead couple (aka, if you want to see some short king x tall queen rep which I for one very much did), but if not, you might wanna skip this one.

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◇ Was it what I was expecting? Pretty much.
◆ Did it live up to its potential? No.
◇ Would I watch it again? Maybe, probably not.
◆ Would I recommend it to others? Not really.

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